There is nothing wrong with a class evolving and adapting to newer play styles of the market - it's a problem when the entire class, regardless of specialization, feels dull and overall not engaging to a big portion of the player-base that relies on it for it's enjoyment.

I LOVED my Hunter in vanilla.
The whole melee, deadzone, ranged mechanic was really fun.
I loved wearing these huge 2h Agility swords. Or dualwielding some other swords.
When a Warrior or Rogue attacked me and I dodged, I loved these huge Mongoose Bites.
I loved having to Wing Clip them and get out of deadzone range so I could hit my ranged abilites.
Sure, in raids you never went melee, but in PvP the melee and deadzone aspects were a huge part of the class.

Today, what is this class?
Survival is this mash your buttons melee spec. While the rotation is fun enough, it's purely melee, no ranged abilities at all.
MM has become this sad no pet and "keep up your Voulnerable debuff" spec. How did it come to this?
BM is OK but it is literally a 3 button dps rotation... come on.

I at least had some fun with the old Survival spec with the Explosive Shot, Kill Shot and Black Arrow with an actual pet on my side.

Also, what happened to the 2 ability you got in the game, Serpent Strike??? Not enough of the class fantasy?

I think the class is at an all time low in Legion.

Just give me an Ranged Melee hybrid like it used to be. Even if it is just one of the specs...

Do you guys like the direction they have taken hunter?

Sorry but I also played Hunter in Vanilla.

Hunter was never a Ranged-Melee hybrid just because you had Wingclip and Raptor Strike.

But yeah I liked Hunter the best as it was in Vanilla, with huge ranged burst aimedshot/multi combos. I didn't even mind the drinking during a raid boss.

I stopped Hunter when they introduced Steady Shot and basically removed Aimed Shot as it was in the BC beta.

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Originally Posted by Zmago

In duels perhaps...

Outside of that they were:
- the easiest class to level
- kiting class
- had nothing special in the sense of rotation

Why would anyone in their right mind want the dead-zone back?

you are wrong

Hunter had the most intricate complex rotation in vanilla.

You had to track your autoshots to weave Aimed Shot casts exactly in between autoshots. If you did not do that properly you would lose autoshots.

I was the #1 Hunter in Damage on a top 5 World Loatheb kill in Classic and I only had the quest bow and t2 while 3 other hunters had the crossbow and t3.

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Originally Posted by Talime

There seem to be a misconeption about "deadzone".

It was not meant as a melee range where you couldn't use your ranged attacks.

The deadzone actually was a small area where you could neither use melee nor ranged attacks, leaving the hunter unable to attack. That was the deadzone and it was outside of PvP never a mechanique that had any impact at all. Mobs were allways trying to get into melee range anyway.

So what people generally want is, melee attacks back that are used when ranged are locked. This is something one can argue about but the deadzone was just a cluncy mechanique that had more the character of a bug or oversight.

Um what? The Hunter Ranged Attacks had a minimum Range in Vanilla. But you could definitely still use Wingclip, Scatter Shot, Raptor Strike, Traps inside the deadzone.

When you fought for example a rogue or warrior you had to scatter, clip or freeze them, run away, channel aimed shot etc

Um what? The Hunter Ranged Attacks had a minimum Range in Vanilla. But you could definitely still use Wingclip, Scatter Shot, Raptor Strike, Traps inside the deadzone.

When you fought for example a rogue or warrior you had to scatter, clip or freeze them, run away, channel aimed shot etc

It was fun, but it was obviously too hard for bad players.

No.

Melee range was 5 yards, minimum Ranged attacks were 8 yards.
5-8 = 3, there was a 3yards range in which a hunter could neither use melee attacks suchs as wing clip, nor ranged attacks such as arcane shot.
THAT was meant by dead zone. A zone where you could do nothing.

It was not the melee zone in which hunters were unable to do ranged attacks but could use melee attacks such as raptor strike or wing clip.

I LOVED my Hunter in vanilla.
The whole melee, deadzone, ranged mechanic was really fun.
I loved wearing these huge 2h Agility swords. Or dualwielding some other swords.
When a Warrior or Rogue attacked me and I dodged, I loved these huge Mongoose Bites.
I loved having to Wing Clip them and get out of deadzone range so I could hit my ranged abilites.
Sure, in raids you never went melee, but in PvP the melee and deadzone aspects were a huge part of the class.

Today, what is this class?
Survival is this mash your buttons melee spec. While the rotation is fun enough, it's purely melee, no ranged abilities at all.
MM has become this sad no pet and "keep up your Voulnerable debuff" spec. How did it come to this?
BM is OK but it is literally a 3 button dps rotation... come on.

I at least had some fun with the old Survival spec with the Explosive Shot, Kill Shot and Black Arrow with an actual pet on my side.

Also, what happened to the 2 ability you got in the game, Serpent Strike??? Not enough of the class fantasy?

I think the class is at an all time low in Legion.

Just give me an Ranged Melee hybrid like it used to be. Even if it is just one of the specs...

Do you guys like the direction they have taken hunter?

I like the efforts taken in Legion to give a unique identity to all classes and their respective specs.

For many years, the design and spec identity for hunters has been pretty bland.

If you want hard hitting caster like play... you went MM. If you wanted instant cast, dot, warlock-esque play... you went SV. If you wanted a hard hitting AI/ez mode spec you went BM. All of which had a pet which other than BM served little purpose other than a bonus to dps you didn't have to think about. That isn't interesting or compelling gameplay. I get it... you like switching between specs to play whatever suited you. That is bad design. It should mean something, and it should change the way you play.

Um what? The Hunter Ranged Attacks had a minimum Range in Vanilla. But you could definitely still use Wingclip, Scatter Shot, Raptor Strike, Traps inside the deadzone.

When you fought for example a rogue or warrior you had to scatter, clip or freeze them, run away, channel aimed shot etc

It was fun, but it was obviously too hard for bad players.

Vanilla Dead Zone is the range between 5 yards(melee) and 8 yards(ranged) in which the only skill usable was Scatter Shot. So EVERY class could destroy a hunter positioning there (if they needed, casters didnt get damage from hunter other than pet, which in vanilla was easily countered, and melee ones wanted to be in melee to do damage and use their skills).

Dead zone was removed in 2.3, so we HAD it on vanilla.

Originally Posted by Kalgan

Kalgan on Fri, 12 Oct 2007 02:19:53 PM PDT
We're planning to shrink the min range on ranged attacks to reduce or eliminate the "dead zone". The only point to the dead zone was to ensure the min range on ranged weapons was enough such that ranged weapon attacks wouldn't be used while also being melee'd (at least by mobs... players have a bit of slush built in).

You had to track your autoshots to weave Aimed Shot casts exactly in between autoshots. If you did not do that properly you would lose autoshots.

I can't even tell whether this is sarcastic.

Originally Posted by A dot Ham

I get it... you like switching between specs to play whatever suited you. That is bad design.

I can't handle this. Having the freedom and versatility of switching between different playstyles based on a core class playstyle is bad now. It's like an unbelievable parody of the "class fantasy" acolytes but it's real.

Actually, that was very good design and is interesting and compelling gameplay. The effort to make specs their own classes (missing the entire point of a "specialisation" in the first place) has only worsened class design across the board. ESPECIALLY Hunters. Being able to change specialisations to have a different take on some base gameplay style whenever you pleased was a very good thing and it allowed for further exploration of that base concept. For Hunters you had a ranged weapon user and 3 specialisations that expanded on that in different ways. You could switch to whatever one you felt playing at the time or perhaps whatever worked best for the current situation. If you wanted a totally different gameplay style, that went beyond the scope of a SPECIALISATION (seriously, try to understand what this word means) and you picked another class. Blizzard is simply not capable of creating 36 different micro-classes to a good standard and there was nothing wrong with the class/specialisation model.

Hunter was never a Ranged-Melee hybrid just because you had Wingclip and Raptor Strike.

In PvP, considering that raptor strike had one shot potential, I'd certainly call that being a hybrid and I wouldn't be suprised if going into melee for raptor strikes would've actually end up with more DPS too back then, I'm pretty sure the autoswing timer wouldn't go on cooldown after autoshot... but I can't remember if that was truely the case.

I was the #1 Hunter in Damage on a top 5 World Loatheb kill in Classic and I only had the quest bow and t2 while 3 other hunters had the crossbow and t3.

considering how poorly optimized dps-meters were during that time and how poorly they tracked group member DPS, I'm not suprised... about pretty much everyone was #1... quite literally. That's just how inaccurate that stuff was.

Um what? The Hunter Ranged Attacks had a minimum Range in Vanilla. But you could definitely still use Wingclip, Scatter Shot, Raptor Strike, Traps inside the deadzone.

When you fought for example a rogue or warrior you had to scatter, clip or freeze them, run away, channel aimed shot etc

It was fun, but it was obviously too hard for bad players.

And when you are the one who is snared (frost nova for example) or people hugged a wall to get out of LoS in a small building etc. , what did you do? The mage would just stand/blink in front of you, get into your deadzone and all you could do was watch. Unlike now, there was no disengage and other anti-root abilities available and it was much harder to remove CC and also much less common for us.

MM and Lone Wolf - Lone wolf should NEVER be the optimal talent even when the boss stands still and your pet would have full uptime. It should be a niche talent to help you in situations like boss constantly running across the room or going airborne (the blind dragon in BWD)

Ranged GCD-capped physical class with a pet - THAT was my class fantasy for the hunter ever since he got Steady shot and Viper aspect in TBC until Legon.

Nowadays, neither spec matches this.
Survival is lolmelee that throws grenades under his own feet (such fantasy, much immersion), MM has to play without pet to be competitive (if I wanted to be immobile petless caster, I would roll mage or boomkin, tyvm).

BM is the only spec I can play, but that is only after the numerous changes - with the Zoo build, high crit change and 2 charges of wild beast it is -somehow- decent with very little downtime. Still it is boring, I hate Hati so much, and at start of legion it had so much downtime, when you had no focus and nothing to press. Lets keep the dps-by-afk-autoattacking gameplay for Classic Servers, it has no place in 2017.

I can't handle this. Having the freedom and versatility of switching between different playstyles based on a core class playstyle is bad now. It's like an unbelievable parody of the "class fantasy" acolytes but it's real.

Actually, that was very good design and is interesting and compelling gameplay. The effort to make specs their own classes (missing the entire point of a "specialisation" in the first place) has only worsened class design across the board. ESPECIALLY Hunters. Being able to change specialisations to have a different take on some base gameplay style whenever you pleased was a very good thing and it allowed for further exploration of that base concept. For Hunters you had a ranged weapon user and 3 specialisations that expanded on that in different ways. You could switch to whatever one you felt playing at the time or perhaps whatever worked best for the current situation. If you wanted a totally different gameplay style, that went beyond the scope of a SPECIALISATION (seriously, try to understand what this word means) and you picked another class. Blizzard is simply not capable of creating 36 different micro-classes to a good standard and there was nothing wrong with the class/specialisation model.

That was NEVER design intent. You class specialization was always meant to be a choice. You being able to change it on a whim, made that choice irrelevant. Bad design.

Melee range was 5 yards, minimum Ranged attacks were 8 yards.
5-8 = 3, there was a 3yards range in which a hunter could neither use melee attacks suchs as wing clip, nor ranged attacks such as arcane shot.
THAT was meant by dead zone. A zone where you could do nothing.

It was not the melee zone in which hunters were unable to do ranged attacks but could use melee attacks such as raptor strike or wing clip.

So your spec should be permanently locked in? exactly how in the everloving fuck would that work with 36 separate classes, but 12 slots? and that's before we start adding races into this.

It is/was supposed to be a choice. You had the option of switching yes but at a cost. Originally that cost could get pretty steep and if you or the OP actually played vanilla, you'd know that cost grew exponentially the more often you attempted to switch. It was never intended that you flippantly swap specs more often than one changes their under garments.